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Hello, and welcome back to Publishing 201—an occasional column in which I'll answer your questions about writing and publishing, so long as they haven't been asked and answered a million times already. There is plenty of 101-level advice out there, and thousands of writers who can repeat it, but very little has been written for writers further along in their careers or aesthetic development. If you have a 201-level question you'd like me to answer, reach out!

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Usually as March rolls into April, you’re a little more careful about anything you may see or hear, especially on the internet, for fear of falling prey to a practical joke. As harmless as pranks played on friends and families can be, they can prove irksome, as can the never-ending effort to one-up their perpetrators. 

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Photo by Lisa Fotios

One of my favorite types of library service to offer is bibliotherapy. Yes, that’s a real thing. And it’s exactly what it sounds like—a reading list to help you process trauma, grief, and other difficult emotions when your world has turned upside down. And since our whole world is upside down right now, it seems imperative to me that the prescription would be for the big picture books, characters against the circumstances of the world, good people fighting the good fight. 

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You wrote the book and then edited the book. Then you found someone interested in publishing it and edited the whole thing again. Now you have to write copy for the back and, if you don't have a publisher that takes care of it, get some blurbs.

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It feels kind of dumb writing about this when there is a pandemic going on, but I pitched this last month, and in dire times we turn to art. So fuck it, let’s talk about self-hype block.

First, I want to say that hyping/branding and selling yourself has nothing to do with creating art. Existentially, if I could just write books and music for myself, I’d still do it. It would be less fun and probably less enjoyable, but the act itself is always worth doing.